25 Cheers for 25 Years: Grant Holloway’s 2019 NCAA Title
Grant Holloway of the Florida Gators celebrates after winning the men's 60 meter race during the Division I Men"u2019s and Women"u2019s Indoor Track & Field Championship held at the Birmingham CrossPlex on March 9, 2019 in Birmingham, Alabama. (Photo by Steve Nowland/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Grant Holloway’s performance at the 2019 NCAA Indoor Championships was the crowning moment of one of collegiate track’s all-time great careers.
Then a junior at Florida, Holloway entered the meet already a multi-time NCAA hurdles champion, but he took his dominance to another level on that March weekend.
In the 60-meter hurdles final, Holloway shattered the American indoor record, blazing to a jaw-dropping 7.35 seconds. That mark broke a 32-year-old record (7.36) and lowered his own collegiate record, making Holloway the third-fastest ever in the event.
Fittingly, it earned him his third consecutive NCAA title in the 60m hurdles and set the tone for a night to remember.
Only 40 minutes after his hurdles triumph, Holloway was back on the track for the 60-meter dash final, and he won that too. He exploded for a personal-best 6.50 seconds in the flat 60m, tying him among the top collegiate sprinters ever.
By meet’s end, Holloway had also run a leg of Florida’s 4x400m relay, helping them to a third-place finish, and even earned a bronze in the long jump the day before.
All together, he scored an mind boggling 27.5 points across four events, nearly half of Florida’s 55-point total as the Gators clinched the 2019 NCAA men’s team championship.
When asked by a TV reporter if he was finally tired after all that, Holloway used his charm and signature smile. “Not at all,” he joked on the ESPN broadcast.
Holloway’s record-breaking night in Birmingham, Alabama capped a college career that can only be described as legendary. He had already swept the 60m hurdles and 110m hurdles titles in both 2017 and 2018, and he would go on to win the 110m hurdles again outdoors in 2019 – making him an eight-time NCAA champion, the most in Florida track history.
He became the first man ever to win three straight indoor and outdoor high hurdles titles in NCAA history, highlighting the sustained excellence of his three years at UF.
Head coach Mike Holloway noted that Grant’s ability to deliver when it mattered most was unmatched, and his 2019 indoor performance will be talked about for years.
Grant had battled some nagging injuries in earlier seasons, but by 2019 he was in great form.
“It says I’m in good shape,” he said after his epic four-event effort. “I’ve been telling everybody I’ve been in good shape for a long time… It’s like my first actual season where I’m healthy, no nagging injuries. I’m blessed to have a healthy season”.
Beyond the stats and records, Holloway’s 2019 finale carried huge weight. It gave Florida back-to-back NCAA indoor team titles and earned him recognition as a collegiate superstar (he would soon win the Bowerman Award as the nation’s top track athlete).
Admirably, Holloway approached his success with humility and grace.
In three short years, Holloway changed the game of collegiate hurdling, and his 60m hurdles championship in 2019 was the exclamation point on an era of Gator greatness.
